CLG Picks Up Hearthstone Team, Alliance Adds Powder

Jan 09, 2017

Last Updated: Jan 09, 2017

CLG adds a trio of players, but Alliance is also expanding.

The influx of major esports organizations continues today as Counter Logic Gaming has announced the acquisition of the ex-Na'Vi squad: Xixo, Hoej, and Surrender. Not to be outdone, Alliance also revealed it had signed Powder to its own team who now joins Orange and former World Champion Ostkaka.

CLG said the team is "one of the strongest Hearthstone rosters in esports," stating that the trio will "they fit right into the CLG culture as hard working players that love to have fun while playing."

"After talking to a lot of esport organizations it's been clear pretty fast that CLG was the best fit," Xixo says. "I'm super excited to keep working with my teammates Surrender and Hoej and join the CLG family." He continued, "CLG provides us everything we need to practice the best we can and I'm convinced that by the end of the year we can eliminate any doubts regarding us being the best Hearthstone squad in the world."

GosuGamers, who regularly tracks rough estimates of player skill in their leaderboards currently ranks Xixo as the best Hearthstone player in the world, Hoej is 11th, Surrender places outside of the top 1,000. He's no slouch however as he quickly burst onto the scene last year after winning the OGN Hearthstone Masters KR Season 2. He almost repeated a few months later but fell 2-4 to honbee. Since then he's had mixed results on the international stage.

When the ESL announced the ESL Hearthstone Trinity Series, a new team league where groups of three will compete over the span of seven weeks with a Best-of-11 format and a $150,000 USD prize pool. Thus far the confirmed teams are Tempo Storm, compLexity Gaming, Virtus Pro, G2 Esports, Cloud 9, Luminosity Gaming and Alliance. With only two players signed to date, Alliance announced the acquisition of Powder to round out its roster for the event.

Powder says he's "super excited" to play for a team that he has always looked up to.

"Back in beta he was the person that taught me how to play Miracle Rogue that later became one of my signature decks," his teammate Orange revealed. "Even though we have been on different teams we’ve always helped each other prepare for tournaments together so needless to say I am thrilled to finally be able to play with him and Ostkaka together in a tournament."

If CLG were to receive an invite how would the two groups stack up? Alliance already has a World Champion on its roster, but GosuGamers currently ranks him as 13th in the World. Orange breaks the top 10 at Rank 8 while Powder is 44th.